A Sobering thought !!

gandalf

Drink-driving arrests rise by 20 per cent.

That headline is taken from an Irish Times article attached below.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2002/0103/breaking

Obviously this years television and poster campaign has been a disaster. As a driver I don't even contemplate having a single drink when I'm driving. Unfortunately others don't seem to realise that they are using a letal weapon when they get into a car under the influence of alcohol.

What do the authorities need to do to stop this menace, do I need to report people I know that have been drink driving and should the ones caught be named and shamed publically. What legislation is needed to help stop this anti-social and criminal activity.

One area that could help with this is improved public transport as anyone who has tried to get a taxi over the Christmas period will testify.

Gandalf.

Boston

what i find shocking is, 2700 tested while only 1100 are above the limit, what happened to just cause,

PiE

If it stopped one person being killed, it's worth it surely?

Boston

i dont know, civial rights are hard to get back once they are given away, i dont like the idea of police pulling you over on the off chance you might be drunk, which they must be doing to get those figures, put i cant really complain, at least for once the gradi are doing somethign to actually hell people on the roads, instead of being used as the tool to extort money out of joe public

Sand

How else would they know if youre drunk unless they pulled you to the side of the road to test you Boston? Id assume the just cause theyd use would be by noticing a driver whose driving skills are "impaired". Its a slippery slope to 1984 I know but I think we can trust the Gardai here not to abuse the reduction of our civil liberites. Sad thing is it took the deaths of so many public servants for New Yorkers to appreciate them, particualarly the NYPD whom an effective hatchet job had been done on. Id hope you have more respect for the Gardai than branding them as

the tool to extort money out of joe public

.

Mind you if they really wanted to stop drink driving how about a few random tests of people leaving pubs to collect their car from the car park? Amazing the amount of cars you will find in a pub car park. It would save the guards some time to check here- If they did it only the odd time it would discourage drink drivers from taking the risk.

Public transport sounds nice Gandalf but you have to remember its exspensive to develop and effective one that can truly provide an incentive for people to leave their cars at home- Taxi deregulation is a good step, but investment in the bus routes or this LUAS system? It will always take a back seat to the populist vote getters of throwing money at health and education.

Hobbes

I don't understand the problem? What civil liberties? The police have done road blocks looking for drunk drivers for years.

Boston

by law they have to have just cause, ie, driving eratically, its pretty easy to spot when someone is pissed behind the wheel,
but in order to catch people who are just slightly over the limit, they need random testing which is not legal,

Sand, ive have zero repeat zero repect for 90% of the gradi out there, because of past and present experiences with them, nothing i ever did, but plenty of incidents were they lapes in their dutty, that said, when you have family member on the force or friends you can get things done. you have clearly lived a shelter life. i dont respect someone because of a uniform.

Hobbes, yea fair enough, but they were for a number of things, ie, taxs, insurance, general condition of the car, you didnt automaticaly get tested, if they smelled drink on you, you they would.

Meh

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
Hobbes, yea fair enough, but they were for a number of things, ie, taxs, insurance, general condition of the car, you didnt automaticaly get tested, if they smelled drink on you, you they would.

Yeah - in the North, everyone involved in an accident automatically gets breathalysed, just cause or not.

bonkey

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
by law they have to have just cause, ie, driving eratically, its pretty easy to spot when someone is pissed behind the wheel,
but in order to catch people who are just slightly over the limit, they need random testing which is not legal

This is why the police never go out to set up "breathalyzer checkpoints", but rather to check on your tax, see your drivers license, and so on to make sure you are legitimately allowed to be on the road.

If, once talking to you, they smell alcohol, they have just cause to ask for a breathalyser test.

Handy little loophole

jc

Biffa Bacon

Anyone caught driving under the influence or otherwise driving dangerously should have their licence revoked and their car confiscated for a certain period of time. It would be up to the judge to decide how long, depending on the seriousness of the offence and the defendant's previous driving convictions. Serious offenders should simply be banned for life from ever driving a car.

gandalf

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
what i find shocking is, 2700 tested while only 1100 are above the limit, what happened to just cause,

Are you serious Boston. I as a driver would not mind the Gardai pulling me over to breath test me if I knew they were going to catch more drunk drivers by using randon tactics like that.

Yes we lose some of our "civil liberties" but then again I already do lose some because any weekend you take your life into someone elses hands if you decide to drive late at night. I have seen drivers on the road around Dublin at 2am on a Weekend that shouldn't be let walk down a path they are so pissed.

Gandalf.

Boston

i just find it unsetling how close were getting to the uk in terms of road laws, not the people id look to for an example of civil rights repect.
i may be wrong, but soon everyone here thats in an acident will be tested, now i cant logicaly argue against this, just be warned what we do in the name of road safety

Ps, i dont drink, or drive just incase people think im coming from that stand point

Zaphod Beeblebrox

Originally posted by Sand
Mind you if they really wanted to stop drink driving how about a few random tests of people leaving pubs to collect their car from the car park?

Unlikely, I expect they want to keep all their teeth intact

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
just be warned what we do in the name of road safety

Sorry if I'm alone in this and I'm sure its going to get me listed in a few people's black books but when I hear that kind of thing I see a scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail... "Help, I'm being repressed! See the violence inherent in the system!".
Personally I don't see that being breath tested is a form of oppression, after all what right are you losing? The right to get home ten minutes earlier? There seems to be an assumption that if you start giving the authorities more power then soon they'll evolve into some evil entity that makes Big Brother look quaint, smashing through your windows with assault rifles on the grounds that you illegally copied a CD. You've said you don't respect people just because they wear uniforms, the way it looks you seem to hate people just because they wear uniforms. You don't need to lead a sheltered life to respect law enforcement, you just need to realise that they're there for a reason and they don't have to be there. In fact people who have a sheltered life have no love for them seeing as they've never needed them. You've had your experiences, I've had mine - mine are often of people branding law enforcement agencies as the spawn of satan, only to mysteriously stop their tirades when they need them.

Human lives or 'civil liberties'? The choice is yours.

mike65

Boston,

Just be glad you don't live in Australia where randon
testing is widespead (and very successfull). No-one with nothing to fear should mind being stopped by a copper, I just wish my
fellow motorists would stop jumping in the brake pedal whenever they see a squad car ahead!.

Also have you noticed how no-one will overtake a garda car?

Mike.

Boston

thats like saying, no one with nothing to fear should mind being stoped on the street and searched, how else will you arrest the pedophiles and drugs dealers.

Boston

Originally posted by Zaphod Beeblebrox
You've said you don't respect people just because they wear uniforms, the way it looks you seem to hate people just because they wear uniforms. You don't need to lead a sheltered life to respect law enforcement, you just need to realise that they're there for a reason and they don't have to be there. In fact people who have a sheltered life have no love for them seeing as they've never needed them. You've had your experiences, I've had mine - mine are often of people branding law enforcement agencies as the spawn of satan, only to mysteriously stop their tirades when they need them.

My first experience of the brilliant gardi in ireland, was as a baby after my whole family was nearly killed in a hit and run, to gardi saw what happened, and as my mother when to them for help, with me in her arms, they told her to **** off and go to the garda station to fill in a report.

My next experience was as a teenagers, when crime was at a high in ireland, my dads car keep getting the radio nicked from it, it got so bad after the thrid time, the gardi stoped coming out when we called them. My dad took the law into his own hands, our his was never broken into again.

My next experience was again teenager, my brother catchs someone smashing into his car, police arrive, give my bother a boloxing for touching the kid(never lad a fingure on him) and sent the guy on his way.

Im many many more stories like these, dont talk to me ever about the gardi, cause i speak from experience, which it seems allot of you lack.
I hear were your coming from and i know the type of people your talking about. they piss me off to, people that just instintivly disliek things. Dont mix me up with one of them.

PiE

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»
thats like saying, no one with nothing to fear should mind being stoped on the street and searched, how else will you arrest the pedophiles and drugs dealers.

It's not like that as they aren't invading your privacy, per say. It's more like a portable lie-detector test thats 99% correct.

And also, you say that you've had first-hand experiences when all of the encounters you listed came from family members experiences, not your own (bar the one when you were a baby but...). I'm not saying they're lying or anything but these things do tend to get exagerated.

Boston

exagerated sure, i can believe you would say that if you hadnt grown up were i did, i mean it doesnt seem right does it, but what you came to expect. i hardly could have my car nicked, i was only a kid myself, and since those days my area has greatly improved, its pretty nice now. But my memories of the gardi remain, weather they happened to me or not, i did withness them.

One thing though, i did had a situation once were the gardi were extremely usefull and ill leave it at that.

Agree with what im say or not, its mute, i was jsut proving my discribion of having pie in the sky ideas about the gardi, was unfounded. now back on topic please